Pop review: Ibeyi: Ash

★★★☆☆The 2014 debut album by Ibeyi, aka French-Cuban twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz, was a delight: modern electronics combined with Yoruba chants to capture ancient sorrow and weight.

While pleasant enough, its follow-up has little of the first album’s magic, with too many electronic effects and not enough of the elegantly soulful Cuban lightness the twins evoked so well. And why their melodious voices are made to sound robotic on Away Away and Me Voy is anyone’s guess. Far better is Deathless, on which a dancing solo by the American free jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington contributes to a bold anthem of defiance against a rising tide of racism.

Ibeyi were brave to step away from the fuzzy warmth of their debut and try something new,…

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